Pro-ISIS Media Agency Al-Battar Releases Video Celebrating Brussels Attacks

The following report is a complimentary offering from MEMRI's Jihad and Terrorism Threat Monitor (JTTM). For JTTM subscription information, click here.

On March 24, 2016 the pro-ISIS media agency Al-Battar released a video titled "The Exile of Islam and Brussels Attacks," featuring scenes of the devastation of the March 22, 2016 attacks on Zaventem Airport and the Maalbeek metro station. The video also covers the January 2015 Charlie Hebdo attacks in Paris, and shows two Belgian ISIS fighters, Abul Qa'qa Al Baljiki and Dhul-Qarnayn Al-Baljiki, who were killed in that operation.  The video, which is partly in English and partly in Arabic with English subtitles, states that attacks like these will continue as long as Muslims are targeted by airstrikes in Syria and in Iraq. In one part, it also condemns Muslims in the West who disapprove of the attacks carried out by ISIS.

The video opens with a soundbyte of U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump saying: "Brussels was one of the great cities, one of the most beautiful cities of the world 20 years ago, it was amazing years ago, it was safe. Now it's a horror show, it's an absolute horror show."

To view the video, click here.

The video identifies Belgium as part of the "Crusaders" who are bombing Muslims in Iraq and Syria.

One part of the video shames Muslims living in the West who do not support such attacks by ISIS: "But the calamity is the exile that the people of Islam live at, till most of them managed to deny Jihad against the disbelievers, and deny the blessed forays in Crusade[r] Europe and other places; including the last for[ay] of Brussels."

Scene from Zaventem Airport

The video shows Belgian ISIS fighter Abul Qa'Qa Al-Baljiki, one of the perpetrators of the January 2015 Paris attacks, practicing his shooting skills.

Addressing the mujahideen, the video states: "Those who sacrifice their dear souls cheap in the cause of Allah, those performing great raids in the middle of the disbelievers' lands in Brussels and other places, may bliss be to you O heroes, because you are on the right path and on the concept of Islam."

A scene from a Charlie Hebdo solidarity march in Paris is followed by illustrations of past Muslim battles against their enemies, showing that there is an historical precedent in Islam for "attacking the lands of the disbelievers."